


The Man Who Saw it All

by aureliu_s



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: CONTAINS MASSIVE INFINITY WAR SPOILERS, F/M, Read at Your Own Risk, Sad and Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 03:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aureliu_s/pseuds/aureliu_s
Summary: WARNING: CONTAINS MASSIVE INFINITY WAR SPOILERSThanos has come and Loki has one of those moments, as the Midgardians call it, of his life flashing before his eyes. Death is imminent with Thanos. Loki struggles to face all the ends.WARNING: CONTAINS MASSIVE INFINITY WAR SPOILERS





	The Man Who Saw it All

**Author's Note:**

> I know I said it three times already but WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PIECE CONTAINS AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
> 
> In other news, I saw Infinity War last night and it was so. good. Expect lots of Infinity War/Marvel works soon.

Loki, the ever-observant brother, had known they were in love far before they did.

 

At first, they were nothing if not acquaintances. He recognized her as his mother’s guard captain, a goddess of justice, she acknowledged him as the arrogant crown prince he was. Frigga’s death had been a reckoning for them both. Loki would never admit he had watched them embrace after her funeral, nor would he tell he had listened to them drink themselves away all night from the shadows. He had watched them grow, from the shadows. Syn became a royal guard, placed into the elite force tasked with protecting the princes. Though she didn’t retain her rank, everyone who saw her--his blond-haired brother included--addressed her as _Captain_. She stood in the throne room beside the Allfather, went where she was told to go, even was ordered to guard the royal quarters more than once by Odin. Loki was unsure of what his adopted father was getting at, and so he had spent a whole night watching from the darkness what it was she did when assigned to their rooms; in the end, she beat his brother four times in four games of chess. She seldom had time to herself, and when she did, she dutifully requested an afternoon’s leave to visit her siblings, Eir and Tyr. Tyr was always close at hand, being a respected advisor to Odin, and Eir was the head healer and apothecary, so she never had to travel far. By Loki’s understanding, she was the youngest of the three. Odd, then, that she and Thor would be the ones to connect.

When Thor’s Midgardian friends needed him, there was a strain; she would rather be there fighting with him, but stayed under her orders to remain on Asgard. When he returned, her assignment to the royal quarters returned as well, for a solid two months. Loki knew, after watching Thor laugh triumphantly in the stillness of night, a mug of beer in his hand, that this friendship would either have to evolve or decay, and it would need to choose soon. And then came an interesting turn; his brother’s Midgardian woman “dumped him”. His brother had never seemed all too surprised about this turn of events, and that led Loki to the equally defining conclusion that the god of thunder wasn’t as much of a dimwitted oaf as he had guessed for all these years. He knew when his reverence was fading with someone and he coolly agreed to Jane’s termination of their light-year-long-distance relationship. Syn had offered him drinks, and he had gladly taken them. But there was no remorse in his brother, no guilt or sorrow.    
  
And in the two years since, Loki had been oddly delighted to see it all happen. The fourth time her royal quarter assignment returned he had witnessed them indulge in a half-drunk series of kisses, stumbling to Thor’s room full of giggles and jokes and cloudy minds. She was given leave to join him on a few of his many searches for the Infinity Stones, from which they always returned together, as if their bond grew stronger with every excursion across the universe. When he came home injured, she carried him on her shoulders the length of the Bifrost and back to the palace. Now Loki watched from the shadows of a different face; older, wiser, more familiar. Odin, he suspected, was dead, so there was no harm in keeping up the facade for the Asgardian people that he was not. Loki and Syn had never seen eye-to-eye, and that was in part due to her undying moral compass and compassion for justice. She was, after all, the deity presiding over it. She was outspoken for the wrongly accused, which had forced her to take the god of mischief’s side in more than one argument before he became the Allfather.

He had seen the beginnings and some middles of their story. How they came to be, how they grew together. Some, if not most middles, only the planets they had visited could know. Loki had surveyed them for as long as they had known each other. Thor introducing her to the Warriors Three and Sif had created a friendly, unstoppable force of six. They almost never made their relationship publicly known, although their nighttime strolls in the gardens were hardly private and servants had murmured they caught the crowned prince stealing a kiss from the guard captain here and there. In short, it was hard  _not_ to know about them. 

 

And Loki had seen most, but not all. He would not see all.

He would not see their end, five thousand years from now. As Syn dragged herself across the debris towards Thor’s unconscious figure, groaning in pain, her dull golden bracers faintly glowing a rich purple, he knew he would not see their end. Either Thanos would end them here, together, in one quick swipe, or they’d live long enough to see him end the universe as he intended. Both outcomes did not have his watching eyes in them any longer. The bodies of Asgardians littered the wreckage of their ship, people who looked up to their king for witty jokes and protection, who looked up to their king’s right hand for security and guidance. People who had trusted them, and they had trusted in return. People who were now dead.

A metallic knock alerted him to his brother’s form again, where a weak force field of energy tinged purple was enveloping both gods. Syn had exhausted herself trying to save everyone, which Loki was smart enough to know was never possible. The force fields had held longer than anyone had expected against Thanos’ onslaught. Force fields that she relied on creating like Thor had relied on his hammer, now failing her, using up the last reserves of her energy in a gluttonous gulp.

She would not last. Purple brightened her veins beneath her skin but she was beyond weak from the attack, there was nothing more she could do. If she was smart, she would stay down. Fall unconscious against Thor, and have the pleasure of setting foot in Valhalla within the hour.

He silently wished her to stay down.

 

She looked up at him with her amber-green eyes, her face streaked with dirt and dust and covered in a sheer layer of sweat. One hand sat on Thor’s chest, supporting her torso up just enough to watch. That’s all she could do. Watch.

 

The air was cut off now, unable to reach his head, his lungs, going nowhere past his chapped lips. There would be no resurrections this time. No foul jokes, no surprises. He was going to die. Loki closed his eyes and remembered all the days shared; the golden halls of Asgard, the blooming trees, the fair-haired populace, the moments of it all. He hit weakly at the hand affixed around his neck. There was no use, he knew it now. He had known since Thanos’ ship first opened fire on them, since the first screams reached his ears.

Syn was struggling to sit up, the field flickering with every moment, as if one millisecond of misguided concentration would render it useless. She was crumpled, but in an ever so dignified way. Over her king, over her god, over her charge, over her _lover_ , she remained still. She looked sorry towards Loki, angry she couldn't do something to fulfill her duty of protecting Asgard’s royalty. Loki could tell. He was never one for calming or consoling, but he managed to give her a final nod. She had done her duty to him already by choosing his brother, by protecting him with the last of her life. She had done her duty. The hand tightened. Her mouth opened to let out what looked like a brokenly ferocious shout, tears now coming down her face. She was crying. For him?

 

He didn’t even hear his own neck snap.

 


End file.
